Will Oprah Be Like Howard Stern or the Yankees?

Although she has not yet said so explicitly, it’s pretty obvious what Oprah Winfrey has in mind. She announced today that she will end her syndicated daytime powerhouse The Oprah Winfrey Show in September 2011 in order to focus on her new TV venture, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). While, according to The New York Times, “Ms. Winfrey made clear to her staff members that she will not transfer the show to cable,” she’ll be squandering what is by far OWN’s greatest asset unless she has some kind of program that viewers can tune into day after day to see her face. Whatever shape that show takes, the rest of the programming schedule will be built around it.

The strategy calls to mind two prominent examples. First there’s Howard Stern, who was given a $500 million deal by Sirius Satellite Radio in 2004 in the hope that his sizable and devoted audience would follow Stern to his new home and bolster the rest of the Sirius lineup. Stern may have helped Sirius pick up new subscribers, but the company has never turned a profit since hiring him, and it ended up merging with its arch rival, XM Radio, in 2008. The combined company was on the brink of bankruptcy earlier this year, and its stock is currently trading at around 61 cents per share.On the other hand, there’s the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network, which was launched in 2002 and built its entire schedule around New York Yankee games, which, like Stern and Oprah, have a sizable and devoted following. After some birthing pains, in which the network failed to reach agreements with cable providers, it has turned into a money-making machine (the network built around the Boston Red Sox, NESN, has been similarly successful).

It would be madness to bet against Oprah, who has gone from one triumph to the next in her career. Whereas Stern’s fans had to buy an expensive new service in order to follow him to satellite radio, Oprah’s will merely have to change the channel—assuming, that is, OWN reaches agreements with the major cable and satellite distributors, which it has two years to do.

The bigger question is whether OWN can surpass the performance of the sports networks, which for all their success remain pretty much one-trick ponies. You can count on millions of people watching Oprah no matter what channel she’s on, but will she be able to come up with enough enticing programming throughout the day to draw viewers away from the likes of Lifetime and Bravo, let alone from such broadcast-network juggernauts as Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy?

Well, maybe. Oprah’s production company already owns the syndicated Dr. Oz Show, and any number of her other regular guests—interior designer Nate Berkus, motivational speaker Robin Smith—seem like good candidates for their own spin-offs. Mix in maybe a celebrity-friendly version of Entertainment Tonight and some regular showings of Pretty Woman and Beaches, and presto! You’ve got a hit cable network. And rest assured Oprah will manage to come up with much better and more original ideas than those.